The Origins of the Ethiopian State – By Prof Ayo

The Ethiopian region extending from East Africa to the Upper Egypt was settled in the early Palaeolithic period. As a result of climatic change, the different tribes of Ethiopia were forced to live in the savannas surrounding the Nile. They become hunters, fruit gatherers and fishers. The drying up of the savannah during Neolithic period resulted in mass dispersion of the population to the different parts of Africa, the Middle East and southwest Asia. Some Ethiopians migrated towards the southern parts of Africa in the direction of Congo and Zambezi basins and others went towards the west along the banks the river Oya (Niger). In the most ancient time black people inhabited the northern part of Africa and the Middle East. The Sumerians were black people who lived in Mesopotamia. The indigenous inhabitant ants of the Indian sub-continent, the Dravidians, the original inhabitants of Australia, Tasmania, and Polynesia, New Zealand are all black people.

Population pressure resulted in the hunters to become stockbreeders. This transition took place along the banks, valleys and deltas of the rivers. The most ancient farming settlement of Africa in the Nile Valley gave rise to the successive culture of the various tribes of Africa. In the Nile valley and the Ethiopian plateau the struggle for land and cattle ensued from the development the petty states. From an aggregation of these states grew the ancient Ethiopian state and civilization contemporary to ancient Egyptian. Ethiopians have nothing to do with the so-called Sabean immigrants from Arabia.

The Greek historian Herodotus (480- 425 B.C) who visited Egypt has described the relationship between the Ethiopians and the Egyptians. They alone among mankind have practised circumcision since time immemorial and others such as the Phoenicians and Syrians learnt the practice from the Egyptians and Ethiopians.

According to Diodorus of Sicily, Greek historian, Ethiopia colonized Egypt. At the beginning of the world Egypt was simply a sea but the Nile carrying down vast quantities of loam from Ethiopia in its flood waters, finally filled it in and made it part of the continent
Kamit or Kmt was the native name of ancient Egypt, which means the black land.

The Biblical Kam is most probably derived from Kamit. Ancient Kamit and Ethiopia were part and parcel of the black man’s civilization in the world. A genuine scholar of history cannot separate ancient Ethiopia and Egypt. Racists have flatly asserted that ancient Egyptians were whites and distorted the development of history in the Nile Valley.

They have no ears and eyes for everything, which the black man did and does in the history of mankind. Time and again it has been propagated in the name of science and history the theory of “superior and inferior” races. The black race is categorically characterised as uncivilized. And anything of African origin is thought to be either imported or diffused from Europe or Asia. For example Carlo Conti Rosisini one of the pseudoethiopianst claimed that Treatise Zara Yakob and of Walde Heywat were the work of an Italian Missionary named Giusto D’Urbino in the 19th century. Zera Yakob was the famous Ethiopian philosopher in 17th century.

According to the hieroglyphic text an authentic civilization began as early as 2500 B.C in Ethiopia. The successive Punt, Damat and Axumite civilizations have their root in Africa (Jacqueline Pirenne, Du Bois, Drsuilla Dunjee Houstone, Rodolfo Fatovitch, 1987).

Punt the Land of the Abasha Ancient Egyptians hieroglyphic records of more than thirteen centuries (2500-1170 BC) bear the existence of the country called PWNT (Punt) and its people called Abesha in Northeast Africa. Punt was a holy land (Taneter) and was regarded as an ancestral homeland of the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt.

In the 5th Dynasty at the height of the Pyramid Age began the earliest record on Punt during the reign of Sahure (2450 BC). Sixty years later there is a record on the expidtion to Punt land led by Harhuf. He brought back a dancing dwarf (denk). Pharaoh Pepi II (2270 BC) sent an expidition to Punt.

During the reign of Senusert II one of the most interesting records of that age was a group of 37 Aamu of Shu brought a tribute of Kolh. The leader of the delegation leading a tamed ibex, his title and name is before him heq setu Abasha, which means princes of the hill country. Abasha means the father of a present.

The inscription of Wadi Hammamat from the XI Dynasty (2134-2040 B.C) records the expedition to the holy land of Punt by the high offical Henu. Punt was one of the countries supposed to be under the jurisdiction of Hathor, the godess of beauty (nbt Pun). In the in script of the XII Dynasty reads: uru nu pun, which means the chiefs of Punt greet you the king of Kemet and the son of the nine nations (peoples). Horus had also the nickname nb Pun (Lord of Punt).

The scotish traveller James Bruce in the 18 th centuries has seen a stela inscribed in hieroglyphs sign at Aksum, which was dedicated to Horus. The god Horus was son of Isis and Osris. The reigning king was regarded as the living Horus. In ancient Egypt the king was not a mortal, he was a god.

This stela was stolen and is now in Scotish Museum.

Queen Hatshepsut (1486-1468 BC) who declared herself the daughter Amon and ruled as Pharaoh sent the famous Punt expidtion and erected the two great oblisks at the Temple of Kranak. Besides that she built the magnificently beautiful tomb and temple complex at Deir el-Bahri. The voyage to Punt land was depicted in the entire south-end wall of the Temple. Bas-relief shows the Punites and their chief named Parahu and his wife Atiya.

Tuthmosis II (1490-1436 B.C) has twice received the products of Punt. The trade expidtion was bilateral. The Punites undertake an expidition via the Red Sea coast during the reign of Tuthmosis II and Amenophis III (1391-1353 B.C) and this was depicted in the private tomb-chapels of four high Thebean officials.

The expidition sent by Ramesses III (1184-1153 BC) to Punt is recorded in the Great Papyrus Harris I.

The location of Punt and its geographical extent has been precisely determined (K.A Kitchen, 1990). The Gulf of Aden and the Afar-Somali coast have been discarded. Any non-African location of Punt had been excluded once and forever.

The XXVI th Dynasty (715-664 BC) left us a valuable stela, which reads:

… Rain fall upon the mountain of Punt… rain was a scarcity in the southern provinces… this month in which its rain was, when it was not the season (for) it, even in the delta towns; your mother (the godess) Neith had brought it for you – a Nile-flood to sustain your forces.
Rain falling in the mountains of Punt and the subsequent Nile inundation into Egypt has shown that Punt was located in the northwest Ethiopian highlands. The ebony (Dalbergia melanoxylm) obtained from Punt was from the regions of northwester Ethiopia (Gojam and Begemider).

The Abasha people of Punt did not come from anywhere; they are the indigenous black, red and brown Africans since time immoral.
Bas-reliefs in Deir-al Bahari at Thebes depict the Ethiopians cultivating myrrh and incense in the land of Punt. The people of Punt belonged to the same race as Pharaoh of Egypt (Kemit).

Professor, I so much like your writing, but you have refused to feed my intellectual curiosity by refusing to dig your history down to the Beginning. I complained this in your account of the history of Onitsha where you claimed that the Obi kingship in Onitsha was borrowed from the 1440s Benin empire kingship.

Here now you have written the history of Ethiopia ignoring vital information that are older that the period of the Greek travellers in that area. Take time to dig into the Oral tradition of the earliest population in Ethiopia (their name is KAMBATA), perhaps their oral tradition will tell you that the earliest Ethiopians were Black. Dig even more, for sure you will be informed of an emperor called Ezana (King of the Land) who built the Obelisk that lasts in Ethiopia till date. or better visit Ajuede blogspot.